Mind Soup

MIND SOUP : A couple of days ago, the news of Octavia Nasr being fired from CNN envaded the Lebanese and Middle Eastern media. It may has come as a shock to the society, yet this denial of free speech has been demonstrated very widely across various prestigious institutions in the region and world-wide. To re-cap, Nasr who held the position of senior Middle East editor at CNN was laid off earlier this week after 20 years of work because she praised the late Hezbollah Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on twitter. "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot," she posted Sunday morning. This tweet was immediately picked up by Israeli supporters and Nasr was criticized and attacked for sympathizing with Fadlallah. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in the US demanded that Nasr "apologize to all victims of Hezbollah terrorism whose loved ones don't share her sadness over the passing of one of Hezbol...

My reader's probably know that I have been a staff writer (on-again off-again) during the past year for Outlook, AUB 's "official" student newspaper. I am very pleased to announced that today afternoon, and after giving it much thought and discussions with very close friends, I have resigned from Outlook. Originally, I had a more criticizing, straight to the point and possibly harsher resignation letter, but due to the requests and recommendations from highly influential people, I decided to go with a more "professional" approach. I didn't want to get in trouble for 'pointing the countless flaws' of the new editor-in-chief [who may or may not be related to powerful figures at AUB]. After all, I don't want to get stuck (again) in AUB's secret intelligence tangled web and get fired tyrannically from something totally unrelated ( reminder ). So below is my simple resignation letter addressed to Outlook's board and staff: Dear Ou...

This article is featured on the Support Freedom of Speech Blog . --- A month ago, I got recommended by a friend to work for Align, the official Olayan School of Business (OSB) monthly electronic newsletter at the American University of Beirut (AUB). I applied and immediately got accepted. AUB Campus Two weeks ago, the letters of acceptances to the AUB Medical School were sent out to senior premedical students. In short, several very qualified candidates did not get acceptance letters while others with much lower grades got the approval. The role of ‘wasta’ (i.e. connections) was very apparent, especially with the new rolling-out admissions system they are implementing. In a spontaneous effort to expose the truth while trying to cheer the deserving people up, I published an opinion piece on my personal profile on Facebook and my personal blog “ Mind Soup ” discussing the effect of ‘wasta’ and favoritism on decisions made by several departments in AUB whil...

Today, I had misplaced my cell phone. I decided the best course of action would be to dial the number from my house phone and wait for it to ring to locate it. Somebody answered when I called. It wasn't the wrong number and I had a brief conversation with the man that stole my phone. FML  Today, my boss fired me via text message. I don't have a text messaging plan. I paid $0.25 to get fired. FML  Today, at work, a woman came up to the counter and asked if we made sweet and sour chicken. Before I could answer, she told me a really long recipe and said "I expect to see this on the menu next time I come in, or I will complain to the manager about your lousy work ethic". I work at Starbucks. FML Today, I moved out of my apartment and thought it would be nice to leave the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom for the next tenant. I later got a notice from the management that I was being charged $50 for leaving behind "personal items." FML

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